Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH Blu Ray
The original GREMLINS is one of my all time favorite movies. The emotional impact of some of the just truly disturbing things… I love it. The Christmas & sweetness just made me entirely too happy. THEN there’s this movie. GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH – is like ALIENS to ALIEN but for GREMLINS. This film is a different animal – almost an entirely different tonal film – It’s far more of a live action Warner Brothers Termite Terrace gone absolutely batnuts insane – and I love it. This is amazing – and we get a Blu Ray worthy of it. Missing footage, BTS-Doc, Commentary with Dante, Zach, the writer and producer, a Gag reel and an alternative Home Video sequence. Yeah, this is exactly what we want. Well, less of a fan of the simplistic menu screen, but once you’re past that you’re having nothing but awesome. One of the funnest films!
A film that grabs you by the ears, pulls you forward and then slaps the shit out of you. When this film hit, it blew audiences away. Mathieu Kassovitz, whom a lot of you may know if you saw the excellent CRIMSON RIVERS, but as much as I liked that, I love LA HAINE. Vincent Cassell is just amazing in this. Set in France – it just takes a bleak soberingly disturbing look at the modern complicated nature of a pot-boiling culture that’s itching to explode. Seriously brilliant. Great film and Criterion did a bang up job on this Blu – just look at the extras:
Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Mathieu Kassovitz, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
English-language audio commentary by Kassovitz
Introduction by actor Jodie Foster
Ten Years of “La haine,” an eighty-minute documentary that brings together cast and crew a decade after the film’s landmark release
Featurette on the film’s banlieue setting, including interviews with sociologists Sophie Body-Gendrot, Jeffrey Fagan, and William Kornblum
Production footage
Deleted and extended scenes, each featuring an afterword by Kassovitz
Gallery of behind-the-scenes photos
Trailers
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau and a 2006 appreciation by acclaimed filmmaker Costa-Gavras
DIRTY DANCING: 2 Film Collection Blu-Ray
This is like the 4th Blu Ray edition of DIRTY DANCING, this time called the DIRTY DANCING Collection – because how could you just want the original, when you can also have the piece of shit DIRTY DANCING HAVANA NIGHTS to just deficate all over the memory of the absolutely awesome original film, that I know every song and beat of. I watched both of these again – and yeah, if you have DIRTY DANCING, there’s not a big reason to get this edition. What has come before is definitely at the same level of quality – and you really don’t need HAVANA NIGHTS, right? Nobody needs that.
It works. I seriously saw the trailer and could not have been drug kicking and screaming to this. Which was ok, cuz Yoko is not on board the Channing Tatum train yet. And I don’t see her doing so, she prefers muppety men like me. Thank God. But I’m a sucker for films that ask if True love can conquer all – because in my heart of hearts – I ABSOLUTELY BELIEVE IT! I dive from the highest diving board for films like this. It just is absolutely calculated – but it works. Really good.
If your mom is cool enough to watch this with you on Mother’s Day… you are truly blessed. Because folks… Darren Bousman made an exquisitely sick fucking movie here – and when I saw this shit in the theater I reveled in the outrageous punch in the teeth that this film is. Rebecca De Mornay is fucking SCARY! And you know she can do that real well. This is just further than she’s ever gone. NOT FOR ALL TASTES! Not a happy movie! Unless you’re a really sick fucker, in which case I love you.
I haven’t seen this film. But I have been a fan of Robert Taylor ever since my Dad first recording IVANHOE starring Robert Taylor & Elizabeth Taylor – and I thought ROBERT TAYLOR rules! Since then, I try to catch as many Robert Taylor films as I can. NOW – this one is directed by William Wellman and he’s a good bet because he directed such greats as THE PUBLIC ENEMY, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, the 37 STAR IS BORN, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, some of TARZAN ESCAPES, BEAU GESTE (39) and more. I particularly love his STORY OF G.I. JOE! SO – I like the pedigree of this one – and folks seem to love the movie. But I love the idea of the story about a group of trailblazing stubborn pioneer women that decided to forge their own trail to the West! That sounds interesting as hell!
42nd STREET FOREVER: THE BLU-RAY EDITION
Ok – so this is pretty much REQUIRED. You’re getting like 3 hours and 45 minutes of some of the best damn Drive-In and Grindhouse era Trailers – and it ranges from trashy awesome to awesome awesome. Over 80 trailers – everything from the first two 42nd STREET FOREVER trailer compilations, mixed with new trailers not on those two – and at 1080p. THEN – it becomes your job as a film geek to seek out all the movies on this thing, just so you know for a fact that you love film – and not just a type of film. If you can watch this, a Bogart flick, a musical and Avengers 4 times theatrically – you’re doing really good. Giggle. Seriously – RAPE SQUAD trailer is on here BNATTERS!!! And others that’ll make you squeal. Lots of tits & bush – but also Fred Williamson kicking ass, and John Carpenter’s DARK STAR. WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS and FLESH GORDON, BLACK SAMSON and more. This is just awesome stuff for a great “WTF Party” with friends where you watch and discuss the insanity of these films. Really awesome. From SUPER FUZZ to THEY CALLED HER ONE EYE to Sly’s porn THE ITALIAN STALLION are represented on here. So much fun!
Just fucking jaw-droppeningly great. This is the kind of war movie that you compare to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and PATHS OF GLORY. It’s about the last battle of the Korean War, it’s about a murder investigation, it’s about a unit that is considered the best unit in the entire war for South Korea and how they just had to keep fighting, when everyone else was told to stop. I LOVE THIS MOVIE! Korean Cinema is something of a huge fetish for me, has been for most of the past decade – and the work of their filmmakers just continues to earn the height of respect and awe. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEEN IN A THEATER! Must see!
CNN’s COLD WAR was a fantastic series narrated by Kenneth Branagh – and really, I kinda love hearing Branagh talk about anything, but the COLD WAR – it’s one of those periods that I love all the details that have come out from both sides since it… ended… Knowing the “other sides’ realities and motivations” are incredibly important to understanding the modern context for the aftermath that we live in. Really well done.
I rather like this Italian Giallo. It isn’t threatening to knock off faves like DEEP RED or A LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN, but it’s a helluva watch anyways. It also has the convention of being a film with a character that’s off work from a horror film he’s shooting, only to LIVE ONE. I love that. This is so the way to discover this movie. So glad I did!
I love Duane Jones. As a boy, I saw NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD repeatedly. We had the film in 16mm – and it just happened to be one of my favorite movies as a kid – and I loved Duane Jones. I just felt he was the tragic hero of the tale – and how NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD ended – and that Duane Jones having been taken from us far too early – just sort of has always felt like one of those shames. I love everything about him in Romero’s film and I’ve always felt he was incredibly dynamic and charismatic. Wanting to see more films with him – then lo and behold – along comes Kino and this awesome Blu Ray of GANJA & HESS – a film Duane Jones made in 1973. A HORROR FILM no less – and it’s kind of fucking great. Don’t bring a lot of knowledge to this – the film is a complicated flick, but so rewarding, I feel. KINO’s doing great work here!
I’m not familiar with this movie – but I soon will. Ordered this last night based solely upon the cast which includeds Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. Belafonte is one of the single most charismatic actors I’ve seen – and in everything that I’ve seen him in, I’ve come away feeling like he should have done so much more acting. 12 features is not enough. But with titles like ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW and THE WORLD THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL and ISLAND IN THE SUN and CARMEN JONES – I’d watch him in anything. This was his first feature, all the way back in 1953 where he plays a School Principal! So can’t wait to see this movie. I love his music, his politics and his films. It can’t get here soon enough.
And not coming out today – but finally available for Pre-Order is…
August 14th? C’mon, I want this for the Fourth of July!!!! Just a perfect film. Perfect.
Now next week we start getting some of the best titles of 2012 so far with THE GREY and CHRONICLE hitting. Then there’s ONE FOR THE MONEY (not great), ALBERT NOBBS (not a fan), THE DEVIL INSIDE, BEING JOHN MALKOVICK Criterion Blu, Bertolucci’s 1900 Blu, THE ODESSA FILE Blu, WALKING TALL Trilogy Blu, WHITE SQUALL Blu, NEW YORK STORIES Blu, D.O.A. Blu, MORTUARY, NORWEGIAN WOOD, GRAND DUEL & KEOMA Blu, THE ORDER Blu, FORBIDDEN ZONE Blu, MAN ON A MISSION: RICHARD GARRIOTT’S ROAD TO THE STARS, DEBBIE DOES DALLAS and that should do it. But fun week next time out!
